The Success Checklist

1. A Clear Vision: INTENTION.
Our mind processes millions of thoughts in a day. Do you know that your unintended, impulsive wish for having a juicy steak or that perfect martini or a drive across the hills or anything else, might be sabotaging your success?
How?
It's good to have that martini or hang out with your mates or have a day off or whatever it is that you wish. But doing all of this when you are not "clear" (and let me stress on this "CLEAR") of what is going to happen in the future, imparts a negative element called worry in the back of your head.
So if you haven't, asked yourself this question - What Do I want? I suggest you do it right away.
Do not pay heed to thoughts like "how do I do it?" because when you do, you won't dream big. And you will again sabotage your greatest success which lies ahead. It's natural for these thoughts to pop up. So don't resist them or give in to them. Simply don't pay heed to them!
Just write down all the money that you'd like to have after a year from now. The car you'd like to have. The kind of house you'd like to live in. What kind of business do you want? Make it as clear as possible. Jot these down in your journal. And as you go about doing that, tell yourself this: "I do not know how I am going to do it, but I will find a way".
Once you have a clarity of the things you will have in a specific amount of time, you will see how clear and easy, making day to day choices become (provided you have the other elements in this checklist).You will worry less because you will be focused more with a clear state of mind.
SO INTEND.
"Our Intention Creates Our Reality" - Wayne Dyer
2. Faith & Visualization.
Sometime back, I had read somewhere, something that instantly changed my perspective: Faith is the antidote for fear.
And when I write this, I could feel it in every bit of my being. This is because I have personally experienced several situations where I have defeated my fear and even exceeded my goals, whenever I have had inexorable faith in a certain result no matter how difficult it may have seemed to achieve.
And what moulds your faith into reality? You got it: Visualization.
So what you need to do next is: Have faith that you will have, in your possession, everything that you mentioned in that list.
Do not worry about how, when and where. Let the higher intelligence handle that. It is this very urge of our reason which keeps us from getting the desired result.
Back your faith and plant in the pillars of support for your dream with visualization. Meditate into the state of inner silence and see yourself in possession of these goals in your mind's eye. And you need to feel the feelings of gratitude, satisfaction, and that sense of achievement you will have when these goals would have already been achieved. Feel them as vividly as you can, during your practice.
Do this day after another. And rest assured as you would set the right universal forces in motion. As you practice this, faith and visualization process, you will see that those questions, of how, when and where, that were thrown by your reason, will start fading out. And you will start getting ideas and notions that could lead you to achieve your goals.
You will draw the right people, the right opportunities and the right circumstances that would lead you to your goal.
I have found a thriving business, great friends, opportunities of success and most importantly, a strong and loving relationship this way. And I am continuing to prosper and grow more and more day by day.
"FAITH IS TAKING THE FIRST STEP, EVEN IF YOU DON'T SEE THE WHOLE STAIRCASE" - Martin Luther King
3. A Plan.
Now that you have a list of achievements to be made, supported by the pillars of faith and visualization, you'll need a plan to get you there. Let me demonstrate this step to you:
John, a 25 year old chap, has following goals to be achieved by the end of 2016:

• A stunning 6 figure income from which he will buy a car and a house of his choice.
• A healthy body weighing 72 kg (about 158lb) with a good built.
• An even stronger and better relationship with his girlfriend.

He builds a deep faith towards the accomplishment of these goals and tunes in to the higher frequencies of his mind through meditation. And then, he visualizes all that he would do when he gets there. The visualization is so vivid, that he actually hears his family and friends congratulating him. He could feel his heart racing when he would drive that dream car. He watches himself entering his dream house with his partner and he could see the smile on her face and feel the true sense of her happiness. He could actually taste the tanginess of the sun-dried tomatoes on that lovely wood fired pizza when he would throw out a party on receiving his 6 figure paycheck. And he could feel the state of health of his attractive, well-built body.
He does this day in and day out. Whenever he gets the chance. Slowly, he starts living in the sense of "belief" that he is that attractive, successful person with a six figure income and a great relationship. This boosts up his self-confidence and it shows up through his now, proactive and charismatic personality.
He starts noticing ideas and notions that may have been there before but he never believed that they could work out for him. He also begins to see every individual he meets differently and begins to find opportunities in every interaction.
His hobby of guitar playing (which actually was a true passion) becomes an idea. His popular pasta sauce recipe too, becomes another idea. He projects a successful self-image from the future and traces a path back to the present. And then he links all the opportunities to his dream and takes ACTION!
John gathers his resources and makes a great plan with the end result dominating in his mind. This self-organization gives him the time for building excellent health, wealth and relationships.
I would love to mention this quote here:
"GIVE ME SIX HOURS TO CHOP DOWN A TREE AND I WILL SPEND THE FIRST FOUR SHARPENING THE AXE." - Abraham Lincoln.
So dream big, have a clarity of thought, and live in that dream as often as you could to trace a path back (in your mind). Once this has been accomplished, you have won half the battle for all you have to do now is ACT!
4. Bold Execution & Persistence.
This step is all about ACTION! Once you have a plan backed by faith, you must act on it immediately. Remember that Attraction always finishes with "ACTION".
If you have been through the previous elements in this checklist, there shouldn't be any sign of fear surrounding you, during your course of action.
There may, however, be other interference like: peer pressure, competition, etc. Just remember a few things here (as they helped me a great lot and are still helping me out):

• Do not let anyone, any circumstance or situation "control" you by instilling fear (of uncertainty, etc.) in you.
• There is no competition out there. Excel and help others prosper with you. The only competition you will ever have is with you and only you.
• You do not go on a sailing adventure with your anchors hooked to the shore.

Even if you don't have any solid foundation for a certain accomplishment (like a degree, experience, etc.), remember that for the bold execution of his voyage to the Indies, Christopher Columbus did not make use of any intelligence, mathematics or maps.
What most people do not understand is that a true attitude of persistence is a must for success. With faith, comes persistence.
Even though you might have to face several failures, remember that giving up is dooming yourself to one. So have faith in every situation. Good or bad.
In the words of Bob Proctor, develop a "Let Go and Let God" attitude. Just remember that a higher power is creating the bigger picture and all these small failures you may come across are a part of that architecture. You must go through them without giving up.
Every failure is a teacher. Your job is to be a great student and stick to your path. And in no time this attitude will lead you to your greatest success.
"SUCCESS IS STUMBLING FROM FAILURE TO FAILURE WITH NO LOSS OF ENTHUSIASM." - Winston Churchill
5. Gratitude.
The attitude of gratitude may be credited as the sole ingredient to success. I have experienced this enough to guarantee you that living in a true state of gratitude can open myriad doors of opportunities for you.
Gratitude is a very deep subject. Yet, the gist of it all is this: Stay grateful, no matter what.
If you have wealth, be grateful for that. If you don't, be grateful for the wealth that's coming. Now you don't know if it's coming or not. But here's the catch - when you start becoming grateful to what you don't have, you automatically build a strong faith towards it.
And when you can literally feel yourself floating in the ocean of gratitude for that one thing you want to achieve, you set all the forces of this universe in action to attract it to you..
My idea of gratitude is being grateful to the smallest of things which contribute to my being and this world around me. So if I meet you, I will be grateful for that. In fact I am grateful for writing this right now. And I am grateful that you are reading this "right now". And I am grateful for the air I am breathing right at this moment and this moment and this moment...
I hope you get the idea.
"IF THE ONLY PRAYER YOU SAID WAS THANK YOU, THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH" - Meister Eckhart
6. Humility.
Everyone is humble. Yet, most of us are humble when it comes to setting goals and dreaming. Now that's just not fair. Is it?
Most people understand humility to be the quality of being modest and respectful in terms of their social stature. Yet, from what I have learned is that this, is easy to achieve. A rather difficult task is being humble enough to listen.
Humility in the right context makes you a winner in two ways:

• You become a "power house" of knowledge.
• You become highly approachable.

Building true humility is a consistent practice on the road to success "and beyond". I stress on beyond as I remember a great quote:
"NOTHING FAILS LIKE SUCCESS" - Robin Sharma
Most certainly. We have often seen successful people to act in a "know it all manner". When you are in a state of mind where you think you know something that the other person is talking about, you are like a glass full of water. Nothing can fill in, no matter what. So you miss out the opportunity of learning something valuable that may come in the course of that conversation.
I don't know if it sounds big to you, but it's a great loss.
Since it is a consistent approach to develop deep humility, make it a habit to practice intense listening. Be crazy about it. Listen to a person even if you know what they are talking about and keep your focus on anything new that may come out. This is true humility.
Personally speaking, I am still working on it, but I have certainly observed great benefits from the small changes I have adopted.
"THE GREATEST LESSON IN LIFE IS TO KNOW THAT EVEN FOOLS ARE RIGHT SOMETIMES." - Winston Churchill.
7. Greatness.
Your final checkpoint is building your own greatness. It has little to do with the success you achieve, the wealth you build.
Your greatness is a true measure of the lives you touch. The happiness you spread. And do not wait for your success to arrive before you start working on building your own greatness. Work every day towards uplifting others. Be it your spouse, your co-workers, your employees, your suppliers, your friends, family etc.
Miracles will start unfolding as you get all those blessings from all the lives that you touch. You will feel one with everything and everyone in this universe.
Live a great life and help others live great lives. That's where your true greatness lies.

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Success-Checklist&id=7895981

Creating Wealth Is Easier Than It Sounds

Practice. It's the magic that makes success possible.

Any person with a skill that others may consider to be amazing, got that way because of the many hours, days, weeks, and years they spent practicing - usually behind closed doors when nobody was watching.

Nobody becomes great at anything without a lot of practice.

Let's assume that you hold a vision of yourself as being a successful business owner. In your vision you see yourself sitting pretty and your business is running really well and life just could not be any better. Great!

That's a fabulous vision to hold, but how do you get there when you're life doesn't look anything like the vision you wish it could be?

Will it happen by accident? It could,in theory, but the odds are heavily stacked against you!

The strategy that works best and the one that is the most reliable of all, and is the one most people prefer to skip is; practice.

Now I realize that many of us had to practice things we simply didn't enjoy as kid, such as taking piano lessons. I doubt I had a single friend who enjoyed those lessons, and that could be why so many adults simply don't enjoy any form of practice today.

But practice can be fun, should be fun, and it should be something you look forward to doing every single day!

And honestly, other than having great luck, I simply can't point to any other strategy that works consistently, reliably, and produces more success stories than practicing every single day!

So let's get practical here. I know that you would love to be wealthier than you are right now. It's a great goal and one that is attainable by anybody willing to practice.

Most every person I meet at my seminars, in my office, or even on the street falls into this category. They have the dream, but never seem to make any progress on making it a reality.

When you look a little closer, you will notice that these very same people NEVER practice their skills in the area of creating wealth. They talk about it, they complain that they are not wealthy, and they may even feel a certain unfairness towards people who have become wealthy.

The result is that they will never progress, their lives will not improve, and in fact, their distress will only increase as they get older and their ability to earn money comes to a halt.

There is a better solution!

Being able to create wealth is a skill that MUST be practiced and perfected every single day. While many might believe that wealthy people are lucky, it's really skill that takes a person from rags to riches. It's a skill that is practiced and perfected, often over a period of years that creates the success most people crave.

To become great at anything, you have to do it again and again, you have to make the mistakes, learn from them, and keep perfecting your skills even when you think you're at the top of your game, you should know that there is always another level.

So what should you be focused on in order to practice your wealth-building skills?

Start with how you define wealth because it's different for everybody. What is YOUR definition of wealth?

Once you have an idea of what being wealthy means to you, spend some time thinking about your skills, what value you can bring to the marketplace, and try to map out a path that you believe will get you to where you want to be in life.

Be flexible, as your plans will change as you learn and perfect your skills along the way. And always remember that the path you find that leads you to creating wealth will be uniquely yours.

We are, after all, individuals with beliefs, skills, and life experiences unlike anybody else in the entire world, so it only makes sense that how you get there is going to be unique in nature.

Now getting yourself into the habit of practicing is the where you'll invest most of your time and the best strategy that I have ever found is being able to "stay in the conversation" of wealth creation as much as you possibly can. In other words, if you want something, you become good at it by thinking about it, reading about, talking with others about it, trying your hand it, and being involved in it as many waking hours as is possible.

This process is commonly called immersion and it's a critical piece of the wealth creation puzzle. You do not get good at something if you just dabble a little here and there. Dabblers never become great at anything. People who are focused on a goal and commit to practicing their skills often find success that even surprises them.

You want to be "all in" and you want to be sure that you're well- read, that you have surrounded yourself with people you can brain-storm with who will be supportive of you and not critical of you, and you want to be sure that you're in the game rather than watching from the sidelines.

When you do these things, and they are not hard to do, but they do require a commitment from you, you will see definite, measurable changes in your level of wealth. It may happen fast, it may take a while, but it will happen because that is the only true outcome for somebody who is dedicated to the cause!

Here's an example of this from my own life. A few years back I got the idea that I wanted to lose some weight. I knew that in order for that to happen that I had to become totally committed to the process. That meant that every bite of food had to be in alignment with losing weight. No cheating!

I began the process by learning about how I could improve my diet and food choices. Cooking was never a skill of mine so I needed strategies for preparing meals that I could do, and that I would do. Once I had that information, I next needed to make a commitment to making the kinds of changes that I needed to make in order to get my weight down.

I found a few people who were also looking for the same kinds of results, and I spent time with them as often as I could. We would check in with each other at least once a week and encourage each other to keep at it. This will prove to be very valuable for you too.

I remember that first week and how tough it really was for me. Eating in a new way, eating less, and eating foods that were a little foreign to me. But through practice, and doing it every day, I got better and better over time.

When I was eating out, I knew what I could order, what I should not order, and I asked my friends never to judge me by what they saw or didn't see on my plate and that I would give them the same respect in return.

It didn't take very long before I started seeing results. Five pounds gone inside of week, then ten, then twenty-five. Ultimately, I knocked off 63 pounds in about 6 months time, which was a complete and total surprise to me that I could drop that amount of weight using the knowledge I had gained.

I became a master at eating well and I got there by sticking to my plan, learning more and more as I went, and constantly refining what I was doing.

If you think that creating wealth is more complicated than losing weight, I'd like to tell you that for most people losing weight is infinitely more complex than creating wealth ever could be.

Now that you know what to do, it's time to create a plan and start doing it!

I look forward to seeing you on top of your game enjoying the life you were meant to live!

Robert Imbriale is the author of the best-selling book, Motivational Marketing. He is a successful business coach, and seminar leader who has helped hundreds of thousands of business owners create bigger, more successful businesses, and he can help you too. Get his free audio "Fail Your Way to Success" by going to http://www.UltimateWealth.com/free-audio.htm

http://ezinearticles.com/?Creating-Wealth-Is-Easier-Than-It-Sounds&id=7726809

Why Some Goals Make You Run in Circles

Why is it that sometimes you can be really clear about a goal, make a plan to get there, and take action on it, but even after years of pushing yourself, you still have little to show for your efforts?

Maybe you made some progress, but perhaps it wasn’t enough to justify the effort. Meanwhile it seems like so many other people are able to achieve similar goals much more quickly. This can be frustrating.

What is it that causes you to run in circles?

A common goal achievement strategy looks something like this:

1. Define your outcome.
2. Make a plan to get there.
3. Take lots of action.
4. Refine your approach as needed.
5. Persist until you succeed.

This method will indeed work for certain types of goals. But for other goals, it will actually cause you to run in circles. You’ll burn a lot of time and energy, but you won’t reach your goal in a reasonable period of time.

The method above tends to work okay for goals that don’t require much inner change. Your current thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors are well aligned with your outcomes. You don’t have to change on the inside. You just have to take certain basic actions that you’re already comfortable with, and you’ll get there.

For example, if you set a goal to organize your home office, and you’re already a fairly neat person, and you know how to organize, and you like the feeling of having everything in its proper place, then you can use this process to achieve that goal. You can imagine your home office the way you’d like it to be. Then make a to-do list of the action steps to get there. Then set aside a weekend to make it so, and go through the steps one by one until you’re done. If something unexpected happens, you can adjust your plan on the fly. This is an achievable goal for you, and if you feel motivated to make it happen, it’s clearly within your power to get it done in a reasonable period of time.

On the other hand, suppose you set that same goal to organize your home office, but your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings aren’t aligned very well. Maybe you’re not particularly happy with the work you do, and having a cluttered office makes it easier to distract yourself from depressing thoughts and feelings. Maybe you worry about having more responsibility. Maybe you fear that your life lacks variety. Maybe you’ve been eating a crappy diet, and it’s bringing down your energy levels, making it hard to feel motivated to de-clutter your office. Maybe you’ve piled up so much clutter that you now view it as a monumental task. Maybe you’re a habitual pack rat and have a hard time throwing things away, even if you haven’t used them in years.

For this second person, the goal achievement process previously described usually won’t work. It may look good on paper, but it can actually have an adverse effect, causing you to run in circles. You may set a goal to have a neat office and make a to-do list just as the first person did, but it won’t yield the same result for you. Even if you make a dent in the clutter, you’ll re-clutter it within a few weeks. Then you’ll beat yourself up, resolve to “stop procrastinating” and “finally get organized,” and try again. Fast forward five years, and your cluttered office still looks pretty much the same, despite investing a lot of mental and emotional energy in trying to improve.

This doesn’t mean you’re broken, lazy, or impotent. It means you’re using the wrong process for your particular goal. If this process isn’t working for you, stop using it. A good process produces good results.

A Tale of Two Vibrations

Albert Einstein is famously quoted as saying that we cannot solve problems at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

In the case of our first person organizing her home office, she already thinks of herself as a neat and organized person. She likes being organized and feels good about it on the inside. When she sees clutter in her environment, she immediately recognizes it: “This isn’t me.” It feels wrong to her. It’s below her standards to tolerate it for long. Perhaps she just got busy, and things piled up temporarily, but she knows that being neat is congruent with who she is. She may have been at a lower level of thinking when she created the clutter problem (stressed, overworked, tired, etc.), but that isn’t her normal state of being. Once her life is “back to normal,” she feels a strong desire to fix the clutter problem. Clutter isn’t congruent with who she is.

We can say that it’s part of her vibe — her collection of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs — to be neat and organized. While clutter may arise from time to time, it’s in her nature to return to a state of order again and again. Something must knock her down to a lower level of thinking, such as stress or illness, in order for her to take actions that create clutter. And even then, she knows she’ll eventually clean it up when she’s back to her normal self.

With our second person, however, being neat and organized isn’t part of his vibe. His normal, default experience is to create and tolerate clutter, even if he doesn’t like it. He’s a match for clutter. His thoughts, feelings, and beliefs all support the creation and maintenance of a cluttered environment. When he does feel like getting organized and he’s able to get himself to take action, it’s a peak state, and it usually doesn’t last for more than a few days. Even if he can get himself to hold that state long enough to organize his office, he’ll simply re-clutter it in the following weeks when he’s back to his normal level of being.

Can you think of goals in your own life where your experience was like that of the first person? And other experiences that were more like the second person?

Are Your Goals Congruent With Your Vibe?

You can use the previously mentioned goal achievement process (or something similar) when your situation is like that of the first person. But it doesn’t work well in the second situation.

Think about some of the goals and projects you’d like to accomplish. Which ones are already a good match for your current level of being? Which ones are not a match for your current vibe?

For example, if you set a goal to earn $1 million this year, but you’ve never earned more than $50K in a year before, it’s safe to say that the first goal achievement process will cause you to run in circles. That’s because your vibe is incongruent with that goal.

However, if you’ve earned $400K, $600K, and $800K in each of the last 3 years, and it feels normal to see your income increase significantly each year, then the first goal achievement process can work just fine. Your current vibe is already a good match for this goal.

Foolish Plans

When your default level of thinking and feeling (i.e. your current vibe) is not a good match for one or more of your goals, don’t try to use the first goal achievement process. It will almost certainly run you in circles. The reason that happens is that you’re trying to achieve a goal at a level of thinking at which it cannot be achieved. You may come up with a nice-looking list of action steps, but they’ll be the wrong actions. When you try to work on that list, something will feel off. You’ll find yourself procrastinating massively, for instance. This doesn’t mean you don’t want the goal. It means you’re trying to use the wrong process to get there. You’ll probably experience lots of clunky starts and re-starts to try to get yourself moving, but you won’t move much.

For example, if you’ve never earned more than $50K in a year, and you decide to earn $1 million this year, but your vibe is stuck below the $50K level, then when you make a to-do list for how to achieve your million-dollar goal, it won’t be a realistic plan. It will be a fantasy. Your plan will be like a child’s plan to build a space ship. It won’t be something you can realistically implement, and it won’t look much like the plan that a true soon-to-be millionaire would use.

Your plan will probably be cluttered with actions that don’t even need to be done, at least not by you personally. It will include a lot of unnecessary busywork. It will focus on actions that won’t produce strong results under real-world conditions.

If someone who was already earning $1 million per year looked at your plan, they’d likely see it as unbalanced and off-base. Even if they were starting from scratch, their plan to earn that first million wouldn’t look very much like yours.

Don’t bother to create plans for goals that you aren’t already a good match for. Such plans won’t work in the real world. First you have to get yourself to the level of thinking at which your goal can be achieved. After you get to that level of thinking, then you can start identifying action steps, and those actions will make sense.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2011/01/why-some-goals-make-you-run-in-circles/